Local Girl Swept Away (31 page)

“Jackie, you don't need to.”

“I do. I should have told you—”

Gently, he put a hand over my mouth. “No, you don't. Really. Don't say it out loud. Neither of us is ever going to say it out loud.”

He took his hand away and we stared at each other for a long time, my mouth frozen open. Finally I whispered, “You
know
? She
told
you?”

He shook his head. “I figured it out. I didn't want to see it at first, but the pieces just didn't fit together any other way.”

“And you know
who
. . . ?”

He looked away. “I have a pretty good idea.”

“Not Lucas.”

“I know.”

“But then why are you—?”

He took my hand in his and stared down at the two of them, intertwined. “Lorna doesn't know I know, Jackie. And I'm not going to tell her.”

“But Finn, you don't have to do this. You don't have to give up your life!”

“I'm not giving it up. This
is
my life, at least for now. This is the way it has to be.”

I was stunned. “But if you
know
. . .”

He shrugged. “Jackie, we all make choices. I'm finally jumping off the breakwater.”

For half a second I wondered what I would do if someone had given me the choice between going to Rhode Island for art school or staying in Provincetown, marrying Finn, and having a child. I was surprised to find it was an easy decision. I loved Finn, but I wasn't even eighteen. My life was all out in front of me. I was so grateful to have dodged the bullet that took down Lorna, but I was deeply sorry that Finn had been caught in the crossfire.

And yet, not surprised. “You
are
a hero,” I said.

A lazy smile picked up the corners of his mouth. “Some people would say I'm a fool.”

“Maybe you can be both things at once.” I picked up my coat. “I should get going.”

He nodded. “Okay. We'll see you before you leave. You've got a while yet.”

“Sure,” I said, even though I felt like I'd said my goodbyes already.

“And you'll come see the baby when she's born, won't you?”

“Sure. I'll come see Lucy.”

He walked me to the door, his hand grasping my arm. “You won't leave P'town for good. You'll come back, right? I mean, you're not going to go off to college and forget all about us, are you?”

“How could I forget Provincetown?” I said.
Or Lorna. Or Lucas. Or Cooper. Or Elsie. Or Charlotte. Or you, Finn Rosenberg
. And then I had a vision of what it would be like, sitting in a dorm room in Providence, Rhode Island, meeting people from other cities, other countries, and telling them about the beautiful place where I'd grown up and my amazing friends. And hearing their stories too, of faraway places I'd never been, of the people they'd loved and left behind. Suddenly I couldn't wait, even though I knew it meant I'd have to jump off the breakwater too.

When I hit the water, I'd swim for my life.

Although I've reconfigured the land near the breakwater and reopened the shuttered high school to suit my story, for the most part this is the Provincetown, Massachusetts, I've known and loved for almost forty years. A unique and beautiful splinter of land surrounded on three sides by water, P'town feels like both the last place on earth and the destination of your dreams. This tiny town has nurtured artists and writers for a century (Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Robert Motherwell, to name only a few) and sheltered LGBTQ people for almost as long. It's also been home to generations of mostly Portuguese fishing families whose fortunes have nose-dived with that industry. It's a town where the sad, the sick, and the lost have often washed ashore and felt themselves at home at last.

I've used the real names for some of the iconic spots in town like Herring Cove Beach, Mojo's, and the Portuguese Bakery, and made up others like the Blue Moon Café. The Jasper Street Art Center bears some similarity to the Fine Arts Work Center. Another of my inventions here is Dugan's Cottages. No place that rundown has existed on the pricey bay beachfront for decades, but there are many longtime locals like the imaginary Mrs. Dugan who, if they'd owned such cottages, would have held out against the developers as long as they could. And, in fact, having a bunch of old cabins just down the beach from the Rosenberg mansion seems to me to describe the flavor of Provincetown perfectly. It is a three-mile-long hodgepodge of a town where variety is the spice and diversity is the norm. There is no place like it.